Top 10 Beatles Parodies And Mashups To Date

The Beatles' entire catalogue is finally on iTunes and racking up the sales, and we're sure everyone involved at Apple, both the software company and the record label, are happy with the results. The Beatles are cracking the Top 40 again in the United States, and "Hey Jude" is currently the No. 1-selling iTunes track in England.

Sir McCartney and Grand Exalted Antipope Jobs' accord has helped to once again catapult the Beatles into the limelight, as if they needed any help in that arena, being essentially the closest thing rock and roll has to living gods.

Of course, there's something to be said for a little bit of irreverence. In Great Britain they call it "taking the piss," and plenty of folks on these here internets have taken plenty of piss (is that how we phrase it?) from the Fab Four. There are also the DJs who have taken the Beatles' tracks and combined them with others, sometimes in such a way which, shockingly enough, improves both songs.

Our favorite parodies and mashups lie ahead. We hope you will enjoy the show.

The same team that did the Beatles film Yellow Submarine did this brief snippet for original Beatles satirists the Rutles. That's why it looks so good. And we've got to hand it to Eric Idle and Co.: this tune is good enough to actually be a Beatles song.

7. DJ Magnet, "Octopus's Santeria" (Beatles + Sublime Mashup)

When we spoke of mashups which improved both tracks by being combined, this was primarily the one we were thinking of. Mediocre Ringo-led child's anthem plus catchy if inane Sublime single equals shoulda-been ska classic.

6. Weird Al Yankovic, "Pac-Man"

Weird Al never got to release this song because Sir Paul wouldn't give him the go-ahead to put it on an album. That happens to Weird Al sometimes; as a parodist, he doesn't need the artist's approval, but he tries to get it anyway just to be a nice guy. Yankovic is nice enough to keep those songs off of his albums but enough of a smartass to see that they get thoroughly leaked anyway.

If you're unfamiliar with St. Sanders' conceit, we'll try to sum it up. Basically, he takes videos of musicians (formerly the guitar solos only, but recently entire music videos) and re-dubs them with sour and heavily flawed instrumentation and bizarre gibberish as lyrics. His genius is that he gets the timing and nonsense-words matched closely enough to the instrument-playing and singing to where it looks like his victims are actually singing and performing this crap. Just watch.

1. Danger Mouse, "99 Problems" (Jay-Z + Beatles Mashup):

The Grey Album launched Danger Mouse's illustrious career. That's right; even some DJs owe their careers to the Beatles.